


A Miracle At Sea

by Entropy House (AnonEhouse)



Category: Drake's Venture (1980)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-23
Updated: 2012-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:32:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/Entropy%20House
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reincarnated Thomas Doughty and Francis Drake meet at Dunkirk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Miracle At Sea

**Author's Note:**

> The end note is a massive spoiler for the movie, Drake's Venture, but really, it's so hard to find a copy, I doubt you'll ever see it. You can find out more about this fandom [ here.](http://dv-squee.livejournal.com/38288.html)

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

He dumped his fishing nets on the dock in disarray and began filling jerry cans of fuel. The dockmaster automatically began to protest that he was exceeding his allotment. Frank glanced up at him. "Goin' to Dunkirk, ain't I? What the bleedin' 'ell's the matter with you, mate?"

The dockmaster shook himself, picked up a can and handed it to Frank. "D'ye need crew?" 

"Nay, I'll need all me freeboard I c'n get." He thumped the side of his boat. "Th' Mary's a gud old girl. She an' I understand each other."

"God speed, Master Drake," the dockmaster said a few minutes later, watching until the old ship, red paint peeling from her silvering sides, and her equally graying red-bearded captain were out of view.

***

He brushed the sand from his jacket once more as another bomb-blast shook the cratered beach. "Jerry's got no sense of style," he told his men with a grin as he slid back down into the semi-protected area behind a huge cement pier. "No respect for a hand-tailored uniform."

His men tried to smile, but they were all tired and frightened, not only for themselves. They knew how much of their country's manpower was trapped here, and how helpless England would be if they died. "The boats are coming, Captain Dowty, sir?" A soldier asked, hesitantly.

"Oh, yes, of course. Couldn't see much for all the blasted sand, but you know they will." Dowtie smiled with a confidence he didn't feel. The boats would come, but would they come in time? And would the weather hold? "How about a game of cards to pass the time?"

***

He was old, by God, but he wasn't dead yet. They'd turned him down for service, but finally he and Mary had their chance. He laughed into the wind, feeling his heart race faster than the chugging engine of his ship. Britain needed him.

***

Dowty lit a cigarette, a nasty French gasper- souvenir of his last encounter with an attractive young Frenchman. In England, he'd have been pilloried for so much as smiling at the lad, but here no one cared. He fought hard, and led his men well, and got as few of them killed as possible. In return they looked the other way when he ignored female whores in favor of their male counterparts. He didn't think he was long for the world, anyway. None of them did. But they were determined not only to go down fighting, but to go down laughing and spitting in the devil's eye.

***

He ran the Mary as close to the beach as he dared, feeling incredibly conspicuous. Bombs blasted the water all around him- dead fish floated on the surface, amid chunks of debris from other, unlucky vessels. The bigger ships waited offshore for him and the others like him, to ferry men. Lines of lifeboats from the destroyers filled the water. In places you could have walked from one to another for hundreds of yards without touching water.

"HERE!" He bellowed, waving his arms. "Here!" He grinned as the first lifeboats touched Mary, and men began climbing aboard. Young men, the future of Britain. God, so young, and so tired, and so damn beautiful, all of them. They crammed in shoulder to shoulder, the last ones being pulled aboard even as Mary backed water.

He lost track of the time. It was like a nightmare, the noise, the pounding of shells into the water, having to forge ahead despite the debris- some of which had been men. Night came and they all continued, the little ships and the lifeboats, edging in to take on precious cargo, wet, stinking, filthy men with ghosts behind their eyes. It was hell. He saw the Basilisk, Havant and Keith go down in flames, men leaping from them into the flaming water.

***

It was dawn of the fourth day, and Dowty's men splashed out into the surf, racing to clear the area to let the next men get out. He came last, checking that no one got left behind. He looked up, startled, as a sinewy, salt-crusted hand reached down and hauled him aboard the fishing smack. His eyes met the faded sea blue eyes of her captain. They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Drake turned from Dowty and ran to the wheel, spinning the old ship with skill.

They couldn't talk. They couldn't even look at each other. Not here. Not now.

***

Dowty hung around the deck of the destroyer, watching the evacuation. He was far from alone; most of the soldiers wound up doing that most of the time they weren't eating or sleeping, or shaking in the dark below decks. But he was the only one watching one particular little ship.

He was the only one who wept when it was sunk.

**Author's Note:**

> Drake's Venture is a remarkably faithful historical movie retelling of Francis Drake's circumnavigation. For my fannish purposes the important part is that Drake has his best (arguably really really best) friend, the soldier/lawyer/gentleman Thomas Doughty, executed on false charges of conspiracy (a conspiracy of one isn't even possible) to mutiny. According to actual witness accounts, they had a friendly dinner the night before and Doughty went to his death after praying for the success of the rest of them and embracing Drake. You could eat the angst/UST with a spoon.


End file.
